Wednesday, September 10, 2008

How to "Smile, and murther whiles [you] smile."

Richard III. Dir. Richard Loncraine. Perf. Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey, Jr., and Maggie Smith. 1995. DVD. United Artists Pictures, 1995.
Ah, Sir Ian. What a lovely way to transition from Lear Week at Bardfilm (which lasted almost a month, it seems) into something new.

This Richard III (and this Richard III—not underlined, and therefore indicating the character rather than the play) is marvelous. I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have when I first saw it—as it should be seen: on the big screen in a smallish theatre with an enthusiastic crowd.

This speech is also marvelous. It demonstrates Richard's ability to smile while plotting murder.

And when Richard spots us in the mirror, overhearing his deepest secrets, it's thrilling (as in OED definition 1.b of "thrilling, ppl. a.": " Piercing or penetrating, as cold; causing shivering or shuddering." Magnificent. Take a gander:


Links: The film at IMDB.

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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
All material original to this blog is copyrighted: Copyright 2008-2039 (and into perpetuity thereafter) by Keith Jones.

The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

 —The Tempest